I'm a Libertarian living in Humboldt County, CA. I've lived here in Eureka since 1973 and joined the Libertarian Party in 1992. This blog will mostly focus on local political issues, but I may stray into state and national issues as well, when I can't help myself. Please post your comments by clicking on the "comments" link at the bottom of each post. Although I do moderate comments, you need not be a registered user to post them.

Tuesday, July 08, 2008

National Guard Actually Fighting Fires

Looks like I was right a few days ago when I commented on Kym's blog that it's unusual for the National Guard to actually do hands on firefighting. I worked on at least a couple fires back when I was in the Guard and all we ever did was support work like driving trucks or traffic control.

The Santa Rosa Press- Democrat confirms that,The National Guard has supported firefighting efforts in California in the past but this is the first time its soldiers will be working as hand crews on the fire lines of a California fire,...That was fairly easy work for real good pay back then and I always looked forward to fire duty. These guys might be hating it in all that heat, although they're probably better prepared for this sort of duty than the Guard folk from back in my day.

Now we need to start wondering how much all of this is going to cost us.

I spent a few years in the California National Guard before a 3-year regular Army stint.

I never got activated for anything during my 4 years, but many of my buddies did after I left the unit for Alaska, including some floods and the L.A. riots.

I think that fighting fires with shovels is preferable to getting in the way of IEDs in Iraq and mines and small arms fire in Afghanistan, which is the way a lot of National Guard soldiers end up dead.